Michael Innes wrote some of his most easily flowing suspense novels starring young men, usually college undergraduates, and "Going It Alone" (1980) is no exception. His heroes are uniformly intelligent (one might even say intellectually arrogant), intrepid, and high-spirited. They tend to actively seek adventure rather than waiting for adventure to stumble over them."Going It Alone" is told from the viewpoint of the young man's rather stodgy uncle, who is living in France to escape the onerous British taxation system. When Uncle Gilbert sneaks back into England to visit his sister, using his friend's passport, he finds his sister and two nieces troubled by the absence of his nephew, Tim. It seems the young Oxford undergraduate had made a mysterious phone call home, then disappeared.Uncle Gilbert has problems of his own. He was followed from France by a crass stranger who insists on calling himself M. Gustave Flaubert. The stranger believes Gilbert is actually the man whose passport he is carrying, the Prince de Silistrie.Then Tim shows up at Boxes, his mother's peaceful country home, with the claim that someone has twice tried to kill him.The ensuing story involves left-wing politics mixed with bank robbers, plus the persistent shadowing of Gilbert by the shifty 'Gustave Flaubert.' Michael Innes could write stories like this in his sleep and perhaps did so with "Going It Alone." It's definitely one of his lesser efforts, but still bounces wittily along filled with dry asides, upper-class British conversation and manners, plus sporadic bursts of action. I am especially fond of the ending where Tim avenges himself on the robbers-turned-kidnappers AND the British banking system.If you'd like to read Michael Innes at his best in this type of coming-of-age thriller, try "The Journeying Boy" (1949).